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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30069663">Raising A Lion</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperPuffin/pseuds/PaperPuffin'>PaperPuffin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Taming A Lion [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy XV</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Minor Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 18:35:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,710</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30069663</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperPuffin/pseuds/PaperPuffin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The first man Cor Leonis ever killed was his own father.</p>
<p>(Character study of Cor pre-Crownsguard.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Taming A Lion [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2212263</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Raising A Lion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
The first man Cor Leonis ever killed was his own father. When his mother spun a careful story the next day that her husband had stormed off drunk the night before, threatening to leave them, and wouldn’t you mind keeping an eye out- well, everyone believed her. Sed was known to be a mean drunk and the town folk had seen more than enough black and blue splattered across the poor woman’s skin through the years. None of them felt guilty that they hoped that the man had met an especially mean daemon out there in the dark, not with how battered Laena was that day she came looking for him. 
</p>
<p>
No one ever took notice of the freshly turned plot of soil at the edge of the family farm. 
</p>
<p>
The ranch changed its name back to Leonis, as did Laena and her son, and it wasn’t long before it was like Sed had never existed at all. He might as well not have for all the difference he’d made in the world, other than the gangly stork of a son he’d sired and the occasionally haunted look in Laena’s eyes when a man spoke too loudly or moved too quickly. 
</p>
<p>
It should have been harder to work the ranch with just two people, and some things were harder, but it was better that way. Without her husband beating her senseless, Laena gained some strength back and could help her son out. With one less mouth to feed and no one spending all the money on drink, it didn’t matter if they took in a little less since every gil went further. Laena Leonis knew how to make a lot out of nothing and she worked hard to make sure her son did too. 
</p>
<p>
Cor, who had always been tall for his age, started putting on some much needed weight and some muscle mass from getting three solid meals a day and taking on the ranch work. Towns folks made sure hand-me-down clothing was passed the boy’s way as he shot through the growth spurt, hoping some good deeds to the family might keep the guilt at bay for never doing anything about Sed. Cor always made sure to say thank you, but not much else. He was a quiet boy- he had learned early that it was safer to be. 
</p>
<p>
While Laena stayed mostly to the house and the farm outside it, Cor became a pot shot with a dead man’s gun. He’d never be a sharpshooter, but he could do enough to scare the voretooths  away from the garula herd that made up most of the ranch. It took a fair time to raise them, and they could have a fierce temper when they wanted, but the beasts went to the meat market for a pretty coin. Cor found as long as he moved slow and quiet like, he could walk right through the herd and none of them would be bothered. If he walked through them often enough they’d let him touch them and check their ears for mites or horn scrapes for infection. 
</p>
<p>
Those were good days. 
</p>
<p>
Cor would get up before dawn to his mother’s cooking. Breakfast would be sausage and porridge usually, but sometimes steak or eggs and hashbrowns. On a rare day, days where Laena was feeling bright instead of haunted and they had money for a treat on the last shopping day, there would be pancakes. Cor always felt like the world was a little bit brighter on the days that started with pancakes.
</p>
<p>
By the time he finished eating and dressing in his work clothes, there’d be enough light to see his way around the ranch. Loading up his satchel, he’d sling it over his back and then, carefully, the rifle would join it. He’d start by walking the fence, picking up where he had left off the day before, and checked for any gaps in the barbed wire or rotting posts. He’d fix what he could. A big job he’d come back to after lunch- usually a sandwich- but otherwise he’d go off and find the herd. 
</p>
<p>
The ranch’s land was dotted with a number of slumped over boulders and, while it made it bad farmland, it gave Cor plenty of warm rocks to stretch out on, rifle ready beside him. If some days he did a little more watching the sky than the herd- well, no one was around to catch him at it. 
</p>
<p><br/>
He’d walk through the herd as it got late, checking them all over, before making his way back home. If it was getting too dark, his mother would be standing watch in the doorway, threadbare shawl tight around her shoulders and a worried line between her eyes. When she saw him, the tension would drain out of her shoulders and they’d exchange a little nod before he went to check that the flood lights were all turning on and that the backup generator would kick on if it was needed. 
</p>
<p>
Those were the good days. It was easy, at the time, for Cor to think that sort of life might last forever. 
</p>
<p>
It was a rosy afternoon and Cor checked on the herd, face split in a rare smile. One of the garulas was pregnant and he felt along her swollen belly to make sure the baby had turned the right way around. He wasn’t the best reader still, but Laena had been helping him through a book about animal husbandry and he’d been working hard to learn everything he could about calving. Even if it sounded a little gruesome, he hoped he’d be there for the birth. 
</p>
<p>
Cor was just pulling his hand away when the herd turned restless around him. Large heads shook in irritation and Cor dodged between the swinging horns to try and make his way to the edge of the herd. He had just about made it, too, when his feet were knocked out from under him as an explosion rocked the earth. The garulas panicked into a stampede. The closest reared up and caught Cor with the massive horn as they turned and ran. 
</p>
<p>
When Cor came to, the skyline was filled with smoke and fire. The ash settled in his throat, choking him and wracking his body with coughs as he tried to stagger to his feet. A sharp pain hit him in the side, and Cor made himself stand through the agony, lip bit tight to keep quiet. Stumbling foot over foot Cor started to walk and then pushed himself to go faster and faster till he was in a full out run. 
</p>
<p>
Laena had been going to town that day to buy food, and Cor ran towards the grocer’s with a single minded focus. The smoking remains of cars and explosion pitted sidewalks barely registered until he had skidded around the corner to the street the store was on. The whole front of the building was missing. 
</p>
<p>
Cor’s hands shook as he staggered through the threshold where the door used to be. His foot hit a stray can of beans, knocking it away with a tumbling rattle that he barely heard over the roar in his ears. His mother’s threadbare shawl pooled out from behind the shelf to his right. It was redder than the dusty rose he remembered it being. 
</p>
<p>
The deepened color made more sense, when, a moment later, he rounded the edge of the aisle to the sight of his mother laying in a pool of blood. The color stained her shawl and dress, obscuring the delicate pattern of small flowers that she had always been fond of. Forget-me-nots, a calm part of Cor’s mind supplied absently. He tried to call to her, as he sunk to the floor, but her name caught in his throat. It was like the ash from the fires was burying the words inside him. 
</p>
<p>
He reached out and shook her shoulder. 
</p>
<p>
She didn’t move. 
</p>
<p>
He grabbed her shoulder more firmly and turned her over. The sight of what was left of his mother jolted Cor to his feet and he turned and ran. He had hardly made it outside when he doubled over, throwing up chunks of pancake and blood flecked with ash as his vision went black.
</p>
<p>
Cor came to in a hospital room, clawing at the tubes in his nose as alarms blared around him. Someone was shouting something about sedation. 
</p>
<p>
He came to, again, in a hospital room, nothing in his nose and a nurse nearby who was quick to stop him from ripping the IV out of his hand. He was in Lestallum, she explained, but wouldn’t tell him much else. Cor refused to answer her questions right back.
</p>
<p>
She gave up, eventually. 
</p>
<p>
It was two days of being awake in the hospital before the man in the suit came. He was flanked by two men in uniform who kept watch just outside the door and he stood straighter than any man Cor had ever seen before. Something in Cor’s gut told him not to trust the man- not to trust anyone that put together. 
</p>
<p>
It was an attack by Niflheim, the suit explained. His voice was crisp and to the point. The attack had happened mid-morning and by the time that anyone had arrived at the scene- the <em>scene</em> he called it, as if good people hadn’t died there- Cor had been one of only four left alive. 
</p>
<p>
Apparently he was lucky.  
</p>
<p>
The suit handed Cor an envelope with a check inside. It was money for the ranch, the suit explained. The area was now off limits and so the Crown had purchased the land from the survivors. Behind the check was an already approved form for Insomnia citizenship- Cor just needed to finish filling it out. The Crown’s way of offering its support. Cor lied when the suit asked if he had any family he could go to and made up some uncle in Insomnia that didn’t exist. It seemed to satisfy the man as he simply nodded and turned to leave. 
</p>
<p>
Oh, the suit said as he paused at the door, the words were said as if he had just remembered some required line, he was sorry for Cor’s loss. 
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Cor has really wormed his way into my head, and so one evening I just sat down and wrote this. As soon as that first sentence came to me, the rest found its way. While I know that the wiki says Cor was from Insomnia, with his accent and skills it makes far more sense to me that he's not- and, to put it simply, he's not above lying. I know this is a darker fic than what I normally do, but with Cor it has to be- at least to start.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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